The Poetry of Karla Huston | ||
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MONA LISA IMAGINES | ||
The virgins on the rocks were never
unhappy, yet you painted them twice. At least the twelve apostles could gnaw meat off bones while they lingered or leaned into a bit of gossip or fingered silver coins. Today you want my hands folded just this way. Chiaroscuro , you call it, a new way of seeing, but oh, I am tired, wait like an unanswered prayer or an angel condemned to kneel forever, while you study the slant of light and adjust shadows with a thumb. Today it's your hair that has me worried, flying out from your head, your beard a silver nest for insects and stray bits of food. And Leonardo, you have such nasty habits: belching after every meal, farting when you bend for a rag, or scratching your balls and peeing from the balcony into the lilies below. Now you could use a bath and those nails clipped, but once you might have been handsome. Maybe then you'd have painted me younger, crowned with roses, my fingers full of gold rings. Why not ask me about the scar on my arm or my crooked little finger? Will anyone remember the smoky haze around my face, the subtle shift of light and dark, see how much it hurt to smile? |
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Previously published in Kalliope and Nanny Fanny and the chapbooks: Flight Patterns, winner of the 2003 Main Street Rag Chapbook Contest, 2003; and Virgins on the Rocks, Parallel Press, 2004.
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